Night Film

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She was seventeen when she’d appeared in Cordova’s film, which today would make her thirty-five.

I Googled her name and a few stills from Isolate 3 appeared. She had only three scenes in the film, a grainy version of one of them posted on YouTube. Peg played Vivian Jean, one of the maids who worked all night cleaning the midtown offices of the law firm Milton, Bowers & Reid, ends up disappearing into a back stairwell, and is never seen again. Moments before she vanishes, she says Scientists look for aliens in the universe, but they’re here. Aliens who pass for men. They’ve already invaded. She was talking about her abusive husband, how monstrous the people you loved could be. I’d always found interesting the fact that Martin in the interview used that line to describe Cordova.

According to IMDb, after appearing in HBO’s New Found Glory—a modern remake of It Happened One Night, canceled after one season — Peg Martin appeared in the ABC TV Western Dust Up, costarring Jeff Goldblum. After 1996, she had no more credits. There was no current information about her and no indication of what she’d done with her life, though I did recall Beckman had mentioned she’d been a heroin addict — probably the reason she’d had such a brief film career.

I checked my watch. It was almost five. I needed to get going. But a lone man wandering a public park being friendly, asking too many questions — it would set off all kinds of alarm bells.

I needed a decoy.